Let me start off by saying that FFXI was, has and will probably always be my favorite MMO. I've met so many friends that are still friends of mine today. It's a game I often think about playing again but due to changes made and other factors, I always find myself unsubbing fairly quickly these days. I've been in search for an MMO to play again for the past couple of weeks and every new release I try seems to be the same. Nothing captures my attention quite like FFXI did back in the day.

A few years ago I started a Linkshell on Titan for the express purpose of playing FFXI the way I remembered. Our roster filled very quickly, because turns out a lot of people miss that and wanted to be involved. Unfortunately, two many cooks were in the kitchen and things started to fall apart. In the time we were together, we completed a good amount of old content and had a lot of fun doing it.

My question is, is there any interest in something like this in 2016?

Playing the game the old way.

- Old school XP parties - Killing crabs in the Dunesssss! - Camping NM's - ZM's - AF quests etc. - Sky, Sea etc. - Playing old content at the level it would have been completed when it was released (75 for high end content)

Maybe something like this already exists? If not, I'd be interested in starting it on the Asura server.

Does the game still have enough life left it in to achieve something like this? Who would be interested?

Feedback is encouraged!

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----------------------------------- "Why worry? each of us is wearing an unlicenced nuclear accelerator on its back.."

Doing stuff isn't the issue. You only need 6 people to party, 18 to do HNM's. The biggest factor is a viable and stable economy. Stuff on the AH to buy.

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Especially in current FFXI that's enough for things to happen, but unlike stuff like that - current XI has trusts to make up player population. But oldschool XI you normally did things in linkshells of 18-50 people anyway.

There's also a big difference between "players" and "active players". Server wide ls also helps, keeps it from being quiet. There's always active people doing lower level stuff from missions to bcnm's to general parties..

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Sites hosting illegal downloads, "private" servers, or material that has been brought to our attention as being in violation U.S. law is not allowed and will be immidiatly removed. All copyrighted content, regardless of format, that is submitted to the forums will be removed at the request of the copyright holder.

Thread not locked, because I read the OP as the original poster wanting to set up a progression guild on a legit server.

--disclaimer: I don't know FFXI so if I have read the OP wrong more action may be needed. Szabo knows this forum, so there may be some undoing of the "trimming" I did to this thread, at his/her discretion when next having a look at it.

No worries, I figured if they posted it here it was allowed. My apologies. You're correct my original post was regarding starting a progression LS on an official server.

Edited, Dec 5th 2016 12:14pm by xbluerangerx

You're all good.

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My feedback on progression guilds/groups doing old content, though from a different mmo, might be helpful:

-I was a part of a really good progression guild that had a strong playerbase doing the original level 50 endgame, with lots leveling up to join. This guild imploded shortly after the guild officer decision to skip 2 expansions of level 60 content and bump the guild up to level 65.

What they missed is that people didn't want to be forced to level that fast, nor miss out on the level 60 content.

At the same time, there was a few that wanted the guild to stay forever locked at level 50... that doesn't really work either as you can only do the same encounters so many times (at least in the game I am referring too) before you'll have everyone geared up and no real reason to do it anymore.

Probably the best course is to set a clear plan at the outset, that anticipates a potential change. So in my example... "after 6 months we will have a member vote on whether to raise to level 60."

Sorry, didn't mean to violate rules. it's come up in the past so I thought it was still a grey area.

It's a great idea in theory on offical servers, the challenge is getting people to overcome the temptation. Also, afiak the xp rates have been changed, where players can get significantly more xp than they did in the old system. On the plus side, there's also fewer bugs or issues you might run in to than on that which shall not be named.

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Just came back, surpised zam is still up and running, this is the first thread that caught my attention, my last expansion was toau, although I had soa installed and did a few of the quest.

Too bad you're on asura, I'm on ifrit, now known as odin, and I'm back looking to test out the trust system. Maybe they edited your post, as it seemed to me this was a legit server discussion, anyway, all I'd say is to put this in a server specific forum, because you only get peoples hopes up lol. Anyone looking to team up on odin, reply, I still have my same char, 75 nin,brd,rng,rdm, I don't wanna start from scratch but I do wanna do things like kill hnms, story missions etc, but in the smallest group possible.

It was edited because it pertained to a private server, and as such, is against the ToS of FFXI.

ZAM does not support/allow discussions that are against the game's ToS/EULA for a number of reasons which I really shouldn't need to explain, and private servers are indeed grossly against the ToS.

You don't have to "start from scratch", you can easily take that Lv75 character up to Lv99 (assuming you unlock all the expansions, which you can do by simply buying the Seekers Edition and registering that to your account).

Once you do that, there will be a Records of Eminence (which is found in the "Quests" menu) quest-line that is designed to point you in the right direction.

Trust NPCs are incredibly awesome, they let you do things you could never do before, and Item-Level gear (Lv99+ stuff) will let you solo nearly anything that's Pre-Adoulin (from Vanilla all the way up to and through Wings of the Goddess). This includes things like Dynamis, most HNMs, etc.

First thing I'd suggest you do once in-game again, is open up Quests and go into Records of Eminence and do what it tells you to do, and keep checking it for new objectives. It'll unlock everything from Trusts to Unity and you can get a LOT of XP from doing this when you first start out.

All the objectives reward XP and Sparks, some even reward Capacity Points (that's a Lv99 thing, think Merits only slower but more powerful). Sparks can be used to buy armor and weapons (no more going broke trying to keep yourself equipped!), and those Trust NPCs will help you get levelups. No more LFG for XP!

Also, as soon as you log in, you'll see a cutscene with a girl wearing white and red; this starts an incredibly important mission line called Rhapsodies of Vana'diel; you'll want to get either 3 Mandragora Dewdrops from Tahrongi or 3 Bee Pollen from La Theine and then go to Mhaura (if you got Dewdrops) or Selbina (Pollen) and talk to the Mayor's receptionist to get started in that.

The first Rhapsody alone gives you +30% XP gains, as a permanent buff, among a lot of other things.

You can teleport around the world using home points and survival guides, yadda yadda.

I suppose I should stop rambling now, lol. The game is so much better since ToAU days. If you feel lost/need more help, post a thread here and I can relate my own experiences in being a recent returnee and/or offer advice on how to get up to endgame.

EDIT: That Lv75 character of yours, if it had a bunch of stuff done like Promathia, Nation, or ToAU missions will have a head-start on things like RoE objectives (you can complete most of these retroactively!) and some Rhapsodies missions can either be skipped or will be faster if you had some of this stuff already done. Also, you get +10% Capacity Point Bonus for each quest line (Each Nation, Promathia, ToAU, etc) you have completed, after you flag it in the RoE objectives. That way, when you get Lv99, you'll get Job Points faster than you would otherwise.

Wow, didn't expect this, nice. I'm watching youtube and setting up my macros, and getting reacquainted with a lot of basic things like modifiers and stuff. I've unlocked a trust npc in sandy, I'm standing in east ronfaure right now with Excenmille, playing with macros.

I got the cs when I entered sandoria, as I re-logged in upper jeuno, still ppl afking in upper jeuno, crazy.

I guess I'll pull up a guide(I have a few up about the new stuff, one is on ala talkinga bout trust, the returning players guide that's on the general forums), but in case they won't specify this, what I'm taking from your post is that I could get exp from having done story line missions or even completing this first trust quest?

But yeah, I've done everything up until toau, I did like 2 toau missions before I moved back home(in my own apt. lolz) from college and me and friends stopped playing.

Doing dynamis solo, that sounds crazy to me, lol last thing I was up to was tp burning in that one toau zone with the little purple guys as ninja or brd in war burn parties for limit break points >.>. Have the trust been updated to take into a dynamis? I read that you can't but the official page says there are updates.

For some odd reason, ZAM's server(s) like to just.... sit there and go "......duuuuh?" for like 10-15 seconds at a time every 5 minutes, and if you happen to post during this 15 seconds you're going to get a post.pl error. Just let it error out and then navigate back to the site and 99% of the time, your post DID get through but the server forgot about you or something weird.

Don't understand why, doesn't seem like ZAM gets that much traffic these days, at least none of the games forums that I can find seem to be THAT lively. Maybe ZAM's still using dinosaur computers? lol.

Anyways, yes, Trust NPCs CAN be used in Dynamis. That's how they can be solo'd. You still need to be careful, though, with any enemy that can charm you. Getting charmed causes your Trust NPCs to instantly get dismissed and you can't call a Trust NPC while in battle with an enemy. Doom also remains a huge threat, as it will still kill you flat out if you get hit with it (that's why you always bring Valaineral with you, let him get hit with the Doom lol).

I'll give you another tip: ALWAYS sub Dancer while solo as a melee job. Since you quit before Wings of the Goddess, you probably don't have Dancer yet. GET IT ASAP (the quest to get it is easy). Dancer is the best sub for any melee job, period. It allows you to heal yourself with TP (it even has a status remove dance!), and it gives you free Sneak and Invisible that is usable even with 0 TP (but it only lasts for 3 minutes). And don't worry about your dual-wielding jobs; Dancer also has Dual-Wield (at Lv20, so you need to be 40+ to get Dual Wield with it subbed). Since Dances are Job Abilities, Dancers are immune to Silence and will not aggro Magic Detecting enemies like Elementals, Pots, etc.

Oh, and..... Mounts. Go to Upper Jeuno's chocobo stables and talk to the little taru wearing the chocobo outfit. That's something else you need to do, like, right away. Allows you to call a variety of mounts anytime you're in any outside area as long as you're not in battle.

I guess I'll pull up a guide(I have a few up about the new stuff, one is on ala talkinga bout trust, the returning players guide that's on the general forums), but in case they won't specify this, what I'm taking from your post is that I could get exp from having done story line missions or even completing this first trust quest?

Completing records of eminence, especially for the first time while you go through and poke the ones you've already done, will get you a ton of exp so make sure you're on the right job when you do that.

There are also limit break quests you'll have to do every 5 levels like before. Have a chat with Maat and the moogles next to him to make sure you're not wasting exp. Most of them just involve feeding merit points to the moogle so they can be completed pretty effortlessly with trusts. Otherwise exp is still pretty much gained the same way. Go to a camp, kill things, level up. A tentative path to 99 is outlined in the guide at the top of this forum but you can pretty much just go wherever you want; trusts make anything possible. Branch out and see what you can see. I never had a party exp on krakens, but it works pretty well and fighting unusual targets is fun.

Soloing Dynamis is pretty simple with trusts at level 99. Charm is still something you have to watch for and it IS possible to be overwhelmed by mobs if you pull too many of them (I once pulled Dynamis - Windurst.... all of it... that was too much). Dynamis - Beaucedine is still a problem for me because the boss does Chainspell Death and y'know.. that causes issues.

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svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

Note to self: Probably shouldn't do forums early morning, lol. I missed this:

Quote:

what I'm taking from your post is that I could get exp from having done story line missions or even completing this first trust quest?

When you turn in a RoE quest, you get XP and Sparks. Many RoE quests are "already done" but not "flagged" as being done.

For example, you said that you have RDM on 75. There's a RoE under Achievements->Job Levels called "RDM Level 50". Since your RDM is already 75, when you undertake that quest, it will complete as soon as you take it, and you will get the XP reward on your current job. If you are 75+ and either capped on XP or have Limit Point mode on, you will gain Limit Points instead just like you would if you were killing enemies.

Also, as Callinon said, you don't have to follow "The Guide". Make sure you get to know the Grounds Tomes in various dungeons, these are incredibly awesome for leveling up, especially the first time. Basically, it will give you a "kill quest" like in other MMOs, where it will be "Kill 3 of this, 4 of that." and every time you do, you get XP, and once per game-day you get something called Tabs (used for buying buffs and teleporting) and Gil.

For example, the Grounds Tome in Labyrinth of Onzozo has a quest for 4 Torama and 1 Manticore (this would actually be a good place for you to get a few levels at 75). Since anything that gives XP at 75 will still give XP at 99, you could even do this clear up (but it will get slow enough that you will want something better after awhile).

The first time you kill those 4 Torama and 1 Manticore, you will get 1350 XP, 1350 gil and 135 Tabs. Each time you complete a Grounds Tome objective, you'll get more XP and temporary buffs (they wear off when you zone), until it caps. This particular quest caps at 2,700 XP per completion.

After all the buffs, these Easy Prey to Decent Challenge enemies should give you about 300-400 XP per kill (more if you use an XP ring and/or have multiple Rhapsodies! They greatly buffed the Emperor Band for example), and the GoV objective should reward about 1400-2700. So, 5x 500xp is 2500 XP and then the GoV is 1400-2700, so once you get it to cap you get 5,000 XP every 5 kills. Not bad for EP/DC mobs!

Especially considering that Level 98->99 only takes 55,500 XP......

EDIT: They also added a lot of Level 80+ mobs to various old dungeons, so check everything before you go near it/attack it as some stuff in low-level dungeons will be IT+ to you even at 75. ffxiclopedia might be out of date on some stuff, but most of these mobs they've got right, clear up to Adoulin areas.

So yeah, gonna unlock dancer, and farm crafting items. The trusts are pretty interesting, I've been using ayame, ulmia, and prishe as a nin/war, lol I've gotten 10k off easy prey in bhaflau thickets, 300 for easy prey is interesting. Not using any of the boosts mentioned in this thread either.

I really wanna finish leveling my crafts, in every guide I've seen, I saw nothing about crafting for returning players, also, I haven't really browsed the ah, I used to spend hours at the ah, playing the market, whats changed with the economy? This was one of my favorite things about the game, finding items in need.

Lot's of good information here, keeping this page up to use. It's crazy, I feel like a baby, just relearning how to blink tank on ninja, and I've tanked kirin on ninja >.> I guess that was once a feat.

Sadly, it is a chore to find some of the newest recipes so you'll have to tell me which craft(s) you're doing; I've found a few awesome easy skillup recipes late level that are either not listed or are hard to find on either of the 2 main wikis.

You can now gain skillups +11 levels after the cap. For example, Copper Ingots once capped at Lv1 Goldsmithing. They are still considered a Level 1 recipe for success/HQ chances, but you can actually now get skillups until Level 12, but at about +5 over the level, your skill gains will really slow down.

This makes some of the easier recipes far more viable for longer, which allows you to skip more of the more annoying levels.

Goldsmithing in particular got a HUGE buff/nerf (depending on how you look at it) with Geodes and Avatar Rocks. Whenever you fight higher level mobs (Lv60-80, Lv80+) you will get either Geodes or Rocks with Avatars' Names occasionally. For example, Breeze Geodes or Garudites. The Geodes are Lv51 and the Avatar Rocks are Lv81 (which means they can be done up to 62 and 92 respectively), and the recipe is simply a Wind Crystal + Rock = Gem (just like the colored rocks from before).

Since these drop off of almost any enemy (since anything that can drop these rocks will give XP clear up to 99), Goldsmithing is now hilariously easy to level up with the exception of a small annoying gap between 62 and ~70 (I started Garudites at 70, though I failed a LOT of synths at first). To get past that gap, you will need a decent amount of Platinum but it is nowhere near as bad as it was before these updates.

Also, there's the Mog Garden which you should already have access to (Rank 3 or Adoulin Access, both of which you should have by now). If you haven't started doing this, DO IT NOW. You get free crafting materials every day, and after you use each node of your garden X amount of times, you can upgrade the nodes. You eventually get ridiculously awesome stuff like Orichalcum, Platinum, Darksteel, etc out of the mining nodes, Kitrons (by planting the Cactus Stems the Moogle there sells), Petrified/Divine/Ebony logs from the Grove, and various high-level fish from the two nets. You can either upgrade with gil by talking to a Skipper Moogle in each of the towns, or Bayld by talking to Zenicca (who is standing near the Home Point Crystal in Western Adoulin near the Pioneer's Coalition). If they won't sell you any key items, just keep using your nodes until they do.

The number of times you can harvest and the quality of stuff you get will keep increasing clear up until your nodes are Rank 8 and once you get Rank 4 in all the nodes you can start raising monsters in your garden which have even more bonuses (I highly suggest looking up Mog Garden at bg-wiki, they got a good guide over there).

Other than that, they also have Crafting Kits sold by the crafting Guilds. Some are good, some are "meh". Look for the kits that make items that sell well to NPC (for example, the Smithing 20? 25? kits that make Tathlum are a poor choice because Tathlum do not sell well to NPCs), or produce things that you can use later (Goldsmithing 20 kits make Silver Ingots which you can then synth into Silver Hairpins, Goldsmithing 40 Kits are probably the easiest way to get Mythril Ingots, etc).

These kits are impossible to HQ (even if you get an HQ, you'll still get an NQ result) and if you fail, you always lose the kit, but they gain skill just like the usual item would.

The AH is something you'll have to re-learn, some things go for crazy prices because Lv99s don't want to spend their time farming Lv40 junk but if they have need of something low-level, they'll just drop gil on it. For awhile, family member and I were selling Bronze Ingots....... Bronze *bleeeeep*ing Ingots for 50k a stack, lol. Some of the Mog Garden drops (Orichalcum!) are also quite expensive too.

Oh, and... start stockpiling ingredients. We just finished a "Double Synthesis Skill Gain" week (it ended last night or early today) but yet there's another one coming during the 4th week of January. You'll want to wait until then to sell/use any crafting materials, because everybody's gonna be crafting and the prices shoot up because of it.

Keep ffxiclopedia handy; you'll see many items that you have no idea what they are. Chances are, if it is used in an easy skillup recipe (for example, Guatambu Logs), it will be somewhat expensive. Also, ffxiah.com is your friend here too. That site actually still works! It even works for Crafting Guild Point Turn-ins, though beware that the guild point calculations are wrong because at some point SE tripled most points/day for most recipes and tweaked a few turn-ins. Some of these have been corrected at ffxiclopedia, but some haven't.

Also, there's a new moghancement system, buying the 200k Signboard + 50k Furniture Item now gives Moglification: Craft which gives you +3? and mild reduction in loss of materials from failed synth.

Another thing about your Mog House, you likely noticed a "Mog Safe 2" option, and a "Switch Floors" upon examining the door (if you aren't able to use this yet, do the mog house exit quests in all 3 of the starter nations, by giving specific flowers to mithra children). What you can do, is put furniture up in the 2nd Floor of your Mog House and it will NOT count towards Moghancement. This means you can dump all of your Mannequins, Bookcases, etc for your 80 storage up there and then put these new crafting furniture in the first floor and actually make use of the Moghancements you really want!

There's a new very helpful NPC in every crafting guild, who you can also get to show up in your garden: the Ephemeral Moogle. Talk to him, and he'll unlock the option to store crystals on him! You can store up to 5,000 of each element crystals on him and you can retrieve them for free at any time. This certainly cuts down on storage space and makes crafting so easy. You can get one of these moogles to show up in your Mog Garden by buying the Invitation Key Item off of the Green Thumb Moogle for 15 Shining Stars (you get one every day you visit your Garden).

Oh, and unlike your Mog House... you can use Clusters, Eat Food, and use Spell Scrolls while in your Garden (and you STILL have access to Change Job, Delivery Box, and the Safe/Storage/Locker systems there).

So uh, that's all I can think of for now to say about crafting, lol.

EDIT: There is also +skillup food. Once you get enough Rhapsodies, the Curio Vendor Moogle will sell them, or if you have a high level cook, you can look them up. The Vendor Moogle will sell up to +5%, though cooking can make 7% foods. The crafting food in particular (Kitron Macarons) are very powerful, and I always use them now. They also greatly reduce the chance of failed synths, so even if I'm not skilling, if I'm crafting anything where I don't want breaks, I'll use Kitron Macarons. When using one, you almost never fail a synth as long as you're above the level of the recipe.

A lot of good information, I have 69 ww, and all other crafts above 10, goldsmithing at 28, alchemy actually at 54. FFXIV, made me wanna craft, as crafting in FFXI, during its days was just a way to accomplish things, like steady income, a supply of sneak and invisible, ninja tools, arrows, and playing the market by making things other crafters needed. FFxi had a nice economy back then, its kinda the same today, but there are less lower level items up.

But yeah, I'm leveling gold smithing and smithing because I have to, as the auction house is somewhat empty of lower level items, but I also wanna level all crafts to their respective levels,since I'm into crafting.

A lot of good information, I have 69 ww, and all other crafts above 10, goldsmithing at 28, alchemy actually at 54. FFXIV, made me wanna craft, as crafting in FFXI, during its days was just a way to accomplish things, like steady income, a supply of sneak and invisible, ninja tools, arrows, and playing the market by making things other crafters needed. FFxi had a nice economy back then, its kinda the same today, but there are less lower level items up.

But yeah, I'm leveling gold smithing and smithing because I have to, as the auction house is somewhat empty of lower level items, but I also wanna level all crafts to their respective levels,since I'm into crafting.

A combination of Dancer Sub (no more Oils/Powders needed at Lv40+), Circumspection (all Grounds Tomes give this 10 minute sneak/invisible buff to you for almost free), the Sparks of Eminence system (you can buy armor from Lv1-50 and weapons clear up to and through 99) eliminate most of the need for low-level crafting.

The Curio Vendor Moogle which gets more wares as you get more Rhapsodies eliminates most of your need for Ninja Tools, Food, Ammo, and even Coffer Keys (lol).

The only crafts that really "matter" now are high-level crafts unless you want to make things from the CVM even cheaper (you could perhaps make stuff yourself if you farmed/have the materials) and High-Level Crafts, particularly the Hexed/Voodoo Equipment (I regularly see shouts of people selling this stuff for 8-digit figures!) and perhaps also the Su weapons (Arasy/Blurred) and Su Armor.

Everything else... is either for odd quest or three, or leveling up to get to said high level crafts, from what I can tell.

Some old timers might still use low level jewelry for leveling because that's what they're used to doing, but to be honest, I've recently leveled a couple characters in the 50s and 60s and I didn't notice the fact I was missing jewelry entirely (well, I was wearing my warp and echad rings lol).

SO yeah, low level stuff... meh. Don't need it anymore.

Sparks NPC will set you up with any weapons/armor you need for your lowbie jobs.

Oh, and..... make a friend! Get Cirdas Caverns or Kamahir Drifts Access.... party up with someone who's gonna be farming there and let your character stand and soak XP, lol. Family member and I once took a job from Level 40 clear up to 90+ in the matter of what, 3 or so hours? lol.

I can't really encourage anyone to level a craft, myself. Whatever markets may exist at the moment are likely be dominated by those with 110+accessories, with further profits likely hinging on hoping for HQs. You'll simply be bleeding lots and lots of money just to even get to that point, when you probably could've just spent the same time farming RME currency or something and coming out way ahead. And depending on the craft, that 100-110 push can be awful even with skilling up over level now possible.

I'm only crafting now because crystals are falling like rain. Prior to my quitting in 2012 I had cooking in the 50's and everything else under 10. Now I do an hour of merit/capacity farming and I have a dozen stacks of various crystals. They made it so easy to craft with the home point teleports RIGHT at the guilds and the after-hours availability of craft kits that I got those old crafts up into the high teens and early 20's. Looks like it may get expensive but there seem to be enough sellable items around to cover it for now. There's a couple of quests that involve making higher-level stuff (the one with the quadav thing is on my log) and I figured eventually I'll level some craft high enough to make those things myself.